You don't have to pay the license fee (note: it's not a payment to Government, the BBC is not Government owned nor is it part of the Government) if you don't own a TV. I listen to plenty of BBC radio. I don't own a TV though, so I don't pay the license fee.
The cost of BBC radio is actually a very tiny percentage of the total cost of the BBC (the lion's share being TV). This is why there is no radio license - it's not worth collecting it because the cost of collection would easily exceed the actual cost of all the BBC radio stations put together.
It's easy to know the answer why. The British didn't gain an enormous empire by being nice. (They lost it by being nice). They gained that enormous empire by being by and large, ruthlessly militaristic and utter bastards.
I am British, by the way. I would never deny that my ancestors were NOT total bastards.
But you DO NOT get that reaction for any penalty. So it proves that most people who are pro barbarism (i.e. capital punishment) are only pro capital punishment when they've not thought through all the consequences.
Most intelligent people realise that you can appeal a life sentence but once you've been executed, there is no appeal. Sure, they wouldn't like to be falsely convicted and receive a life sentence, but they know they can appeal, or new evidence may come to light. However, they know that if they've just been gassed, it doesn't matter what new evidence comes to light - they are already dead.
Then there's the barbaric methods of execution still used in places like Florida, such as the electric chair.
The murder rate will dramatically rise? Sorry, can I have whatever you're smoking 'cos it's gotta be good shit.
In the US, which has the death penalty, there are over 10,000 gun murders per year.
In the UK, there are perhaps no more than two dozen murders by ALL methods per year. The US only has 5 times the population of the UK, yet its murder rate is orders of magnitude higher - despite having the death penalty!
As a kid, I used to think the death penalty was a great idea.
At about age 16, we had a school debate on the subject. I was on the 'pro' death penalty side, but that debate sowed the inital small niggles of doubt.
By the time I was 18, I realised the death penalty was completely barbaric. If just one innocent person is executed, that's tantamount to state sponsored murder. That's not to mention that capital punishment doesn't seem to deter crime anyway - Texas is executing more people than ever.
One of the interesting things - if you have a debate with most pro-capital punishment people, they go awfully quiet when you ask them what would they do if they were falsely convicted of a capital crime. How would they feel as they were about to be gassed for a crime they didn't commit?
I'm glad the EU outlaws capital punishment - it's a concept that should have disappeared in the 19th century. As Ghandi said - an eye for an eye and soon the whole world would be blind.
I think PC buying will slow down. Just like cars, airplanes etc. the PC is maturing, and the rate of progress has dramatically slowed over the last few years (if the progress had continued, we should all be using 7GHz processors by now).
The old Compaq Deskpro EN machines (Pentium 3, most 733MHz) are just fine if you have 256MB of RAM in them for office use, even with the latest Office and XP SP2. They are all at least 5 years old. Go to many small businesses and you'll see that the computer behind the desk is circa 1997.
No - it's not an exaggeration. The FARs (or 14CFR to be picky) says (paraphrased) that the pilot in command can deviate from *ANY* regulation during an emergency to ensure the safety of the aircraft.
However, some of the flags they use for risk are so silly and transparent. A genuine terrorist would just buy a round trip ticket from a travel agent to look low risk since they know that buying one way tickets off the Internet flag you as high risk.
Birds are much better at soaring than me (they get to do it all day long and don't have to go to work), so I often follow them since my old Ka-8 will fly slowly enough to follow a gull.
I'm sure half the time hawks and other soaring birds will often soar for no other reason than it's fun. They don't appear to be looking for prey or going anywhere except for up. They will often quite happily fly with the gliders (and they expect you to obey the rules of the air too - start thermalling in the opposite direction to the birds already in the thermal and they will squawk at you loudly).
I think they often show off, too. They'll stay with you for a while, and just to prove they are better at it than you, will core the thermal tighter and bugger off upwards.
I dunno, with your kitten - cats seem to have a pretty good intuition as to what's going on with humans. When my mother died prematurely (aged 48), her cat knew she was ill even though she was in intensive care in hospital. I'm sure he sensed our worry and then our grief quite well.
A $12/hr Windows administrator is a reboot monkey.
Windows (especially on the server) is a very complex product, and needs every bit of as much expertise as Unix or Linux to administer securely and correctly. A good Windows server admin will charge the same hourly rate as their Unix/Linux counterpart.
The trouble is the screeners CAN'T make an exception for you. The moment they make exceptions for soldiers, the terrorists will dress as soldiers and carry forged government documents. The terrorists aren't all brown skinned with long beards - remember Timothy McVeigh? I believe he used to be a soldier who served in the first Gulf War.
Even so, US screening goes far beyond the pale - it does a lot of things that are inconvenient and expensive to make it LOOK secure when in fact it doesn't do much at all.
And you're right; it is a game of whack-a-mole. Just like the terrorists probably won't use a plane in the US again, they probably won't use a tube train in London again. Once you have airport style screening on trains, they will move onto something else until everything we do is screened and sanitized and there's no freedom left at all. That's exactly what they want. Putting intrusive screening on the London Underground means the terrorists won that round; they have succeeded in terrorizing.
Fortunately, I did hear a politician on Radio 4 after it happened rejecting screening on trains as impractical, and essentially giving the line that vigilance is much better (the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, I think he understood this).
Anyway, I have a Roland A90. Superb keyboard, hammer action, the works. Sounds fabulous. Loads of different piano sounds.
I don't know what it is, but given a real piano...it somehow seems better than synthesized sound and hammer action, even if it is an upright that you saved from being thrown out and got for free.
Windows does NOT have a lower administrative cost if you're looking to hire COMPETENT administrators (i.e. not reboot monkeys - people who will diagnose problems and actually make the whole network run smoother). On a large network, Windows is every bit as complex and as hard as Linux, GUI tools notwithstanding.
Case in point: our org has made a huge shift from a (very out of date) Novell network to AD and all of MS's other good stuff. The new network performs much worse than the old one, is much more expensive to run due to bandwidth requirements and is less reliable (mostly due to the dunderheaded decision to centralise everything, rather than anything MS has done). A full Windows server system is very complex, and to operate securely and competently needs administrators every bit as expert as their Linux counterparts and every bit as expensive to hire. We currently have a drove of Microsoft consultants here trying to fix our problems, and they aren't making much headway...and these are Microsoft people.
The $99/mo 1TB bandwidth shops are NOT managed server companies. They are UNMANANGED servers and it's up to the customer (who has root access) to decide how to patch their machines.
I'm not surprised it took Slashdot so long - Slashdot is a US site, and therefore the editors were all in bed when this was unfolding. Slashdot is always short of articles before about 2pm in the UK because it's run on US timezones.
And that is why no one will buy DVD-A. It's less useful than a CD (you can't easily rip it to play it on your MP3 player or laptop), and the sound quality gain is negligable - most people won't be able to hear the difference between it and a CD.
The thing is...it won't work. DVD is rapidly replacing VHS because it's just SO MUCH BETTER than VHS. Much more convenient (random access, no rewinding, tougher) and much better quality.
CDs rapidly overtook records because...again, convenience - little 5 inch disk instead of a 12-inch disk, much easier to play (just pop it in the player, no messing around with needles and cleaning the disk slavishly each time) and MUCH better sound quality.
But DVD-A vs CD? I bet 99 out of 100 people can't tell the quality difference and the disk is the same size - absolutely no convenience gains over conventional CDs. And it's actually worse - you can't copy the songs to put on your MP3 player or laptop!
DVD-A will be a flop because when all things are considered it's worse than CD - less convenient because it's difficult to rip for use on your laptop or computer or MP3 player, and the quality gain is so negligable hardly anyone apart from audiophiles will actually notice. Why would anyone buy a less useful product?
Slashdot Mirror
It already is via ROBOTS.TXT.
You don't have to pay the license fee (note: it's not a payment to Government, the BBC is not Government owned nor is it part of the Government) if you don't own a TV. I listen to plenty of BBC radio. I don't own a TV though, so I don't pay the license fee.
The cost of BBC radio is actually a very tiny percentage of the total cost of the BBC (the lion's share being TV). This is why there is no radio license - it's not worth collecting it because the cost of collection would easily exceed the actual cost of all the BBC radio stations put together.
I'm a British citizen, yet I didn't pay a single penny towards this. It's easy to opt out of the TV license - just don't own a TV.
In fact it was so disinteresting, you actually clicked on the Slashdot story and posted a comment!
It's easy to know the answer why. The British didn't gain an enormous empire by being nice. (They lost it by being nice). They gained that enormous empire by being by and large, ruthlessly militaristic and utter bastards.
I am British, by the way. I would never deny that my ancestors were NOT total bastards.
But you DO NOT get that reaction for any penalty. So it proves that most people who are pro barbarism (i.e. capital punishment) are only pro capital punishment when they've not thought through all the consequences.
Most intelligent people realise that you can appeal a life sentence but once you've been executed, there is no appeal. Sure, they wouldn't like to be falsely convicted and receive a life sentence, but they know they can appeal, or new evidence may come to light. However, they know that if they've just been gassed, it doesn't matter what new evidence comes to light - they are already dead.
Then there's the barbaric methods of execution still used in places like Florida, such as the electric chair.
The murder rate will dramatically rise? Sorry, can I have whatever you're smoking 'cos it's gotta be good shit.
In the US, which has the death penalty, there are over 10,000 gun murders per year.
In the UK, there are perhaps no more than two dozen murders by ALL methods per year. The US only has 5 times the population of the UK, yet its murder rate is orders of magnitude higher - despite having the death penalty!
Capital punishment does not work as a deterrent.
As a kid, I used to think the death penalty was a great idea.
At about age 16, we had a school debate on the subject. I was on the 'pro' death penalty side, but that debate sowed the inital small niggles of doubt.
By the time I was 18, I realised the death penalty was completely barbaric. If just one innocent person is executed, that's tantamount to state sponsored murder. That's not to mention that capital punishment doesn't seem to deter crime anyway - Texas is executing more people than ever.
One of the interesting things - if you have a debate with most pro-capital punishment people, they go awfully quiet when you ask them what would they do if they were falsely convicted of a capital crime. How would they feel as they were about to be gassed for a crime they didn't commit?
I'm glad the EU outlaws capital punishment - it's a concept that should have disappeared in the 19th century. As Ghandi said - an eye for an eye and soon the whole world would be blind.
I think PC buying will slow down. Just like cars, airplanes etc. the PC is maturing, and the rate of progress has dramatically slowed over the last few years (if the progress had continued, we should all be using 7GHz processors by now).
The old Compaq Deskpro EN machines (Pentium 3, most 733MHz) are just fine if you have 256MB of RAM in them for office use, even with the latest Office and XP SP2. They are all at least 5 years old. Go to many small businesses and you'll see that the computer behind the desk is circa 1997.
No - it's not an exaggeration. The FARs (or 14CFR to be picky) says (paraphrased) that the pilot in command can deviate from *ANY* regulation during an emergency to ensure the safety of the aircraft.
It's irrelevant that he's a white US citizen.
So was Timothy McVeigh.
However, some of the flags they use for risk are so silly and transparent. A genuine terrorist would just buy a round trip ticket from a travel agent to look low risk since they know that buying one way tickets off the Internet flag you as high risk.
I fly gliders.
Birds are much better at soaring than me (they get to do it all day long and don't have to go to work), so I often follow them since my old Ka-8 will fly slowly enough to follow a gull.
I'm sure half the time hawks and other soaring birds will often soar for no other reason than it's fun. They don't appear to be looking for prey or going anywhere except for up. They will often quite happily fly with the gliders (and they expect you to obey the rules of the air too - start thermalling in the opposite direction to the birds already in the thermal and they will squawk at you loudly).
I think they often show off, too. They'll stay with you for a while, and just to prove they are better at it than you, will core the thermal tighter and bugger off upwards.
I dunno, with your kitten - cats seem to have a pretty good intuition as to what's going on with humans. When my mother died prematurely (aged 48), her cat knew she was ill even though she was in intensive care in hospital. I'm sure he sensed our worry and then our grief quite well.
It's that way on macppc - everything is standard except the BIOS and non-x86 CPU.
A $12/hr Windows administrator is a reboot monkey.
Windows (especially on the server) is a very complex product, and needs every bit of as much expertise as Unix or Linux to administer securely and correctly. A good Windows server admin will charge the same hourly rate as their Unix/Linux counterpart.
The trouble is the screeners CAN'T make an exception for you. The moment they make exceptions for soldiers, the terrorists will dress as soldiers and carry forged government documents. The terrorists aren't all brown skinned with long beards - remember Timothy McVeigh? I believe he used to be a soldier who served in the first Gulf War.
Even so, US screening goes far beyond the pale - it does a lot of things that are inconvenient and expensive to make it LOOK secure when in fact it doesn't do much at all.
And you're right; it is a game of whack-a-mole. Just like the terrorists probably won't use a plane in the US again, they probably won't use a tube train in London again. Once you have airport style screening on trains, they will move onto something else until everything we do is screened and sanitized and there's no freedom left at all. That's exactly what they want. Putting intrusive screening on the London Underground means the terrorists won that round; they have succeeded in terrorizing.
Fortunately, I did hear a politician on Radio 4 after it happened rejecting screening on trains as impractical, and essentially giving the line that vigilance is much better (the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, I think he understood this).
I must get my old upright piano tuned.
Anyway, I have a Roland A90. Superb keyboard, hammer action, the works. Sounds fabulous. Loads of different piano sounds.
I don't know what it is, but given a real piano...it somehow seems better than synthesized sound and hammer action, even if it is an upright that you saved from being thrown out and got for free.
Windows does NOT have a lower administrative cost if you're looking to hire COMPETENT administrators (i.e. not reboot monkeys - people who will diagnose problems and actually make the whole network run smoother). On a large network, Windows is every bit as complex and as hard as Linux, GUI tools notwithstanding.
Case in point: our org has made a huge shift from a (very out of date) Novell network to AD and all of MS's other good stuff. The new network performs much worse than the old one, is much more expensive to run due to bandwidth requirements and is less reliable (mostly due to the dunderheaded decision to centralise everything, rather than anything MS has done). A full Windows server system is very complex, and to operate securely and competently needs administrators every bit as expert as their Linux counterparts and every bit as expensive to hire.
We currently have a drove of Microsoft consultants here trying to fix our problems, and they aren't making much headway...and these are Microsoft people.
The $99/mo 1TB bandwidth shops are NOT managed server companies. They are UNMANANGED servers and it's up to the customer (who has root access) to decide how to patch their machines.
"How on earth could you ever work for Microsoft, the big evil company??"
The answer to which, is of course, "Because I'm totally evil too..."
I'm not surprised it took Slashdot so long - Slashdot is a US site, and therefore the editors were all in bed when this was unfolding. Slashdot is always short of articles before about 2pm in the UK because it's run on US timezones.
Because most thieves are opportunistic morons who won't even know how to wipe or remove a hard drive, let alone reinstall an OS on the laptop.
And that is why no one will buy DVD-A. It's less useful than a CD (you can't easily rip it to play it on your MP3 player or laptop), and the sound quality gain is negligable - most people won't be able to hear the difference between it and a CD.
The thing is...it won't work. DVD is rapidly replacing VHS because it's just SO MUCH BETTER than VHS. Much more convenient (random access, no rewinding, tougher) and much better quality.
CDs rapidly overtook records because...again, convenience - little 5 inch disk instead of a 12-inch disk, much easier to play (just pop it in the player, no messing around with needles and cleaning the disk slavishly each time) and MUCH better sound quality.
But DVD-A vs CD? I bet 99 out of 100 people can't tell the quality difference and the disk is the same size - absolutely no convenience gains over conventional CDs. And it's actually worse - you can't copy the songs to put on your MP3 player or laptop!
DVD-A will be a flop because when all things are considered it's worse than CD - less convenient because it's difficult to rip for use on your laptop or computer or MP3 player, and the quality gain is so negligable hardly anyone apart from audiophiles will actually notice. Why would anyone buy a less useful product?
Ah. So you must be the other person with DVD-A disks after the guy who wrote the pipe-audio-to-disk thing...